Since I’ve left notes elsewhere saying I’m mostly offline for the next [1:n] days [where n is indeterminate], I thought a little more detail might be in order:
- The surgery: removing a Schwannoma (a benign nerve sheath tumor) from my right forearm–a visible bump perhaps 1.2″ long and 1.3″(?) high, determined to be benign by a January needle biopsy-which also irritated the lump and caused it to grow.
- When? Tuesday, March 29, around 3:30 pm Stanford Hospital, Dr. David G. Mohler (who did a great job).
- Pain? Not bad: of the allowed 2-pills-each-6-hours allowed, I needed 1 pill Tuesday afternoon, 1 at bedtime, 1 Wednesday a,m.(10 hrs later) and, since then 1/2 pill every eight hours, Good chance I’ll stop altogether tomorrow. (OTOH, my metabolism appears to be tough on drugs: the whole-arm nerve block, intended to last 8-12 hours, lasted about 3.5 hours. General anesthesia not wanted or needed,)
- Problems? Maybe just reality: after trauma to the tendons and muscles and nerves in the arm, my fingers aren’t back to normal. (But gripping, etc. is pretty much OK.)
So I mostly need to let my right arm rest until the swelling goes down. I’ve seen how hard it is to work online without instinctively using both hands. So I’m mostly staying off. Two fingers are starting to come back to semi-normal; the rest could take a day, or three, or a week.
Otherwise? There’s leeway enough in The Big Project; I’m feeling good enough that I went for the daily walk around the 1,3-mile block with my wife today.
Thanks for the expressions of concern
